This is a creative outlet in a journey that is constantly intersecting the muddy-ness of life with the movement of the Holy Spirit. I invite you to join me as I ruminate on the walk to discern God's movement in the midst of the mess.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Plumbing the Depths

The scripture today is from Psalm 42:7 - "Deep calls unto deep" which is an invitation to explore what Richard Rohr calls "the unconscious, the hidden, the suffered-toward, or the often mystical level of meaning."

I sit with that and think - I don't want to. However, when I sit in silence and truly open myself to God's presence I touch both my deepest longings and my limitations. Eugene Peterson in the Message translates this verse to "Chaos calls to chaos." Here is what I keep learning - that when we do plumb the depths - even the depths of our mistakes - we find "grace, new space and more authentic freedom." But it is by no means comfortable.

I read Love Warrior today by Glennon Dowle Melton, her memoir in which she has the courage to go deep. Another way to say it is she is unafraid to go into the chaos of her life. At the discovery of her husband's infidelity and pornography addiction, she and he both ultimately went into therapy and explored deeply their "wiring" that had caused them to avoid pain in order not to be truly intimate. He reached for sexual fulfillment, she reached for food or a drink. There was much that I admired and identified in her story - most especially how easy it is to live "in our heads" or to "push the easy button" into numbing behavior rather than speaking our truth or feeling the normal pain of life.

Deep calls to deep - plumbing the depths is really about exploring all the feelings of life. And over and over again it is clear that if we do not experience the pain we will never get to the deepest joy. All of which is easier to write about than to do. On the book jacket they referenced that it is a "beautiful, brutal journey." I think that is true.

And so I continue on this journey of trying to be present to my life and embracing all of it.

This morning in prayer I felt like over and over God was saying to me -